A's, Giants issue territorial-rights statements

The Giants and A's have fought over territorial rights a long time, and now they are fighting between themselves.

So long as Commissioner Bud Selig remains publicly noncommital about the future of Bay Area baseball, the feud is sure to escalate. In statements they released Wednesday, the teams took calculated shots at each other.

At 9:58 a.m., the A's - irked by a suggestion in the New York Daily News that the team will not be allowed to move to San Jose - e-mailed their statement to the media saying, for the first time, they don't believe delineated territorial rights exist in the Bay Area.

The A's contend rights to Santa Clara County should have reverted to neutral after a failed Giants stadium ballot measure two decades ago:

"Of the four two-team markets in MLB, only the Giants and A's do not share the exact same geographic boundaries. MLB-recorded minutes clearly indicate that the Giants were granted Santa Clara, subject to relocating to the city of Santa Clara. The granting of Santa Clara to the Giants was by agreement with the A's late owner Walter Haas, who approved the request without compensation. The Giants were unable to obtain a vote to move and the return of Santa Clara to its original status was not formally accomplished."

The A's statement further said the team's only desire is to build a modern ballpark "35 miles further away" - the phrase was bold-faced and italicized - from AT&T Park and establish good competition between the clubs.

Photo: Jeff Chiu, AP

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In this March 31, 2010, photo, Oakland Athletics owner and managing partner Lew Wolff, left, and general manager Billy Beane, center, watch as the Athletics played the Cincinnati Reds in a spring training baseball game in Phoenix. Wolff has been waiting two years for his old fraternity brother, commissioner Bud Selig, to tell him whether he can go ahead with his outline to move the A's from Oakland into Santa Clara County even though the San Francisco Giants hold the territorial rights in technology-rich Silicon Valley. less

In this March 31, 2010, photo, Oakland Athletics owner and managing partner Lew Wolff, left, and general manager Billy Beane, center, watch as the Athletics played the Cincinnati Reds in a spring training ... more

Photo: Jeff Chiu, AP

A's, Giants issue territorial-rights statements

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To which the Giants, in their rebuttal e-mailed at 4:42 p.m., said hogwash.

The Giants' argument is that A's owners John Fisher - who once was part of the Giants' current ownership - and Lew Wolff agreed to the rights when purchasing the team "for just $172 million in 2005."

The Giants' statement added: "Indeed, the A's fail to mention that MLB's 1990 territorial rights designation has been explicitly re-affirmed by Major League Baseball on four separate occasions."

The Giants said Santa Clara County represents 43 percent of their territory, which they said they heavily targeted after purchasing the team in 1992.

The A's statement emphasized that the commissioner's office denied the Daily News story and also stressed a new stadium would eliminate the team's dependence on revenue sharing. It also pointed out the Giants opened one of their team stores in Walnut Creek and that Wolff said at the time he was "fine with the Giants store and wished there was an A's store in San Francisco."

Earlier this week, Wolff told The Chronicle's Matier and Ross, "My level of hope is high - one way or another. .... I didn't say necessarily that I would like the result."

On Wednesday, Wolff said in an e-mail, "I remain hopeful" about moving. Reached again after the Giants' statement, he said, "We will continue to follow the process."